Emily Faithfull: Miscellanea (2)

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 THE SCOTSMAN
7th May, 1863.

THE VICTORIA MAGAZINE.

London, Emily Faithfull. No. I.


OF making of magazines there is no end; and if other publishers find their profit in issuing magazines, why should not Miss Faithfull and the Victoria Press?  The name is an admirable one, both from its right royal connection and otherwise.  It is well also that the Victoria does not seem to be intended to be merely a "woman's rights" magazine; but to be a story-telling, essayistical, general, and genial miscellany.  In the first number neither the verses "Victoria Regina," which are but a poor echo of Mr Tennyson's "Alexandria," nor Miss C. G. Rossetti's "L. E. L." are first-rate; but all the prose is good and interesting.  Mr Dicey's "Social Life in the United States" is a pleasant piece of desultory talk; you read it as if you were listening to the conversation of an intelligent traveller.  Here are a few of his observations on the present condition and effects of American literature:—


    "It is not the authors, but the public which is wanting in America.  Whatever may have been the case formerly, in our times you cannot have writers unless you have readers also.  Now, in the United States the class educated enough to read books requiring a certain degree of culture for their enjoyment is comparatively a small one.  Moreover, the short-sighted refusal of the Federal Government to consent to any law of international copyright has told most unfavourably on native talent.  Publishers are but men, and it is not to be expected that they will pay high prices for American works of genius when they can republish the best of English literature for nothing.  Hence there is little encouragement for American authors to produce works for which the demand is limited and the remuneration inadequate.  Hawthorne and Longfellow belong to that class of authors who write as the birds sing, because they cannot help doing so, and they are great writers not because they are born in America, but in spite of their being born there; but there is very little about either themselves or their works which is purely American, as apart from English.  Lowell and Wendell Holmes and Miss Harding—a very young lady writer who seems to me to have a great career before her—are the only American writers of real merit who, in my opinion, are in any distinct sense native authors.  At the present moment the great public for whom an American has to write corresponds intellectually to that portion of our own public which delights in Chambers' Miscellany and the London Journal, which thinks Martin Tupper a poet and considers the 'Recreations of a Country Parson' a work of profound philosophy.  No doubt, as education in the States becomes condensed as well as diffused, a public for high class literature will grow into existence; but its era has not yet arrived.  Meanwhile it is worth noting as a fact that no single Southern State has ever produced a literature of its own, or any single writer even of American note.  The peculiar institution, whatever else may be its merits or demerits, does not breed men of letters."


    Mr T. A. Trollope begins a pleasant, lively, story of English life under the title of "Lindisfarn Chase;" and Mr R. H. Hutton contributes a readable, but not particularly notable, essay on the new somewhat stale subject of spirit-wrapping.  A Journal kept in Egypt in 1855 and 1856 by Mr Senior, is still interesting, though political and personal changes have in some points lessened its original interest.  An Egyptian engineer, an accomplished and educated man, denominated Mongel Bey, gives Mr Senior the following explanation of the moral nature of the beggars, &c., of Alexandria:—


    "We talked of the importunate extortion of the donkey boys and beggars of Alexandria.  'That is', said Mongel Bey, 'because you do not apply the proper remedy.  A man begs, and instead of giving him a para you give him a piastre.  "Ah," he says, "see what God has done for me; He has sent me this Christian to give me a piastre.  Perhaps it is His will that the Christian shall give me another, or even more than another."   To avoid the sin of rejecting the favours of Providence, he will persecute you indefinitely, but if you turn and give him a cut with your whip, he is satisfied.  He has done his best, he has ascertained that God does not intend him to have another piastre from you, and he submits.  So as to the donkey boy; when you give him ten times his fare he does not, as a European would do, either feel grateful to you as a benefactor, or despise you as a fool.  He does not think about you; like the beggar, he thinks that Providence is kind to him, and resolves to profit by its favour to the utmost extent.  He runs after you, he implores you, he says you are cheating him, he describes the beating he shall get from his master for not bringing home the money that he ought; until you thrash him you have not answered him in the only language he understands.  If you had used the stick at the beginning you would have spared yourself and him much trouble.  You may try the experiment tomorrow.  Take a donkey boy of course; his fare is twenty parces, that is half a piastre; give it to him confidently, and he will leave you without a remark.  Give him a piastre, and he will importune you you for more.  But if you give him a couple of piastres, he will run after you the whole day, he will wait for you opposite to every door which you enter.  He will never leave you until you apply your stick.'"


    Mr Meredith Townsend gives a rather sombre and disheartening picture of the "Career of Englishwomen in India," which is, in fact, no career at all, but an enforced idleness, wearisome and monotonous in the extreme to any active nature, till custom and climate have done their habituating work.  Mr Tom Taylor introduces by two lively sketches, one of Garrick in the House of Commons, and the other of Johnson and the wits at Mrs Abingdon's benefit, a series of papers on "The Great Actors of 1775," which men of literary as well as men of theatrical tastes will look forward with pleasure to perusing.  Notes on Social Science and on the literature of the month complete the contents of a very promising opening number of the Victoria Magazine.


 
THE TIMES
(12th. October, 1867)

VICTORIA PRESS, PRINCES-STREET, HANOVER-
SQUARE.
_______________

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.


Sir,—May I ask you to insert this letter in your columns, as I find from various letters received during the last week that it is necessary for me to state that I have ceased to have any connexion with the printing-office founded by me for the employment of women, and known for some years past as the Victoria Press.  I am therefore not responsible for the publications which are now being printed at the office in Farringdon-street,                                      Yours truly,
      Oct 11.                                                            EMILY FAITHFULL

_______________


THE TIMES
(14th. October, 1867)

VICTORIA PRESS.
_______________

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.


Sir,—The letter from Emily Faithfull in your Saturday's impression is calculated to do me serious injury, unless you permit this statement to appear in your next issue.

For upwards of three years I have been the partner in trade of Emily Faithfull, and managed the business of the Victoria Press.

During this time Emily Faithfull has not more than once attended at the office to see after the "women" for whose employment she so emphatically insists she founded the printing office.

I have purchased the business of the office which I had so superintended, and have paid Emily Faithfull the price for it.

The publications now printed at that office consist of those that before my purchase were printed there, with the sole addition of a weekly newspaper which is made up of extracts from the public papers.

I alone am responsible for publications now printed at the office in Farringdon-street, the partnership between Emily Faithfull and myself having been dissolved.

I am most anxious that the public should know that Emily Faithfull has now no connexion whatever with the "Victoria Press,"   Yours obediently,
   Oct.12.                                                                              WILLIAM WILFRED HEAD.

_______________


THE TIMES
(16th. October, 1867)

VICTORIA PRESS.
________________

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.


    Sir.—It was open to Miss Faithfull to refrain from commencing a correspondence, the imprudence of which is apparent, but not to terminate it with a bare denial of my statement.

    I reiterate that for upwards of three years Miss Faithfull has only once visited the workwomen at the Victoria Press, and I have young women constantly at work there for 2½ years who have never seen Miss Faithfull.  So much for the question of veracity.

    In conclusion, I must express a hope that I may no longer be subjected to these attempts to injure the Victoria Press which have been unremittingly made since Miss Faithfull's connexion with that establishment ceased through a dissolution of partnership to which I was compelled to resort in self-defence.

    Thanking you for your courtesy, I am, Sir,       yours obediently
                                                                                               WILLIAM WILFRED HEAD
   Oct 15.

This correspondence must cease so far as our columns are concerned.


 
THE SCOTSMAN
9th June, 1870.

NEW PHASE OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS.


A meeting of the Victoria Discussion Society was held in London on Monday evening, at which Mr James T. Hoskins, B.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, read a paper on "Women's Suffrage."  Sir John Bowring presided.  Mr Hoskins proposed that 150 women should be elected by the women of England, that these 150 women should sit in the House of Lords—(laughter)—and that those representatives should be elected at every dissolution of Parliament.  England would then, he said, have really a mixed government.  Miss Emily Faithfull thought that Mr Hoskins was a friend of Mr Bouverie's in disguise—a veritable wolf in sheep's clothing, apparently advocating the cause of woman's franchise, but in reality giving a weapon to the enemy to use against it on all future occasions.


 

 
The New York Times
(16th. February, 1873)

THE BEST SOCIETY

Lecture by Emily Faithfull—The Works of the Standard Authors.


Miss Emily Faithfull lectured before a very large audience at Association Hall yesterday afternoon, on "The Best Society."  In one of Mr. Ruskin's most striking books, she said, we were told that the gratification of vanity lay at the root of all modern effort, and that we even desire an education which shall enable us to ring with confidence the visitor's bell at double-belled doors, and which shall ultimately enable us to place double bells at our own door.  The accident of birth or money may enable us to obtain what we so wickedly covet from those base motives, but in the society of which she intended to speak we may all take rank according to our deserts, and we can never be outcasts except by our own fault.  In the companionship of books we enjoy many immunities which are denied us in our intercourse with our fellow creatures.  Books never intrude upon us as unbidden guests, nor do they outstay their welcome.  They are the only friends liable to no change; they stand by us in all vicissitudes, as comforters in sorrow, healers in sickness and companions in joy or solitude.  There are some points of resemblance between modern society and the society of authors, and there are well-defined distinctions and degrees as to their capacity.  We don't dream of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Scott on the same footing: consequently, as Lord Bacon says, some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some digested.  In respect of social power she admitted that genius was often hereditary but it was as absurd to suppose that the nobility of a family continued if its genealogy be unbroken, though father and son have been indulging age after age in habits which involve degeneracy of race, as to take it for granted that because a man's name is common his blood must be base, when his family perhaps have been ennobling it from generation to generation by pureness of moral habit. [Applause.]  As acquaintance with the best society teaches that the greatest men of mark are the men of character: and while she did not mean that genius and morality were synonymous, she claimed that that which really raised a country was not the aristocracy of talent only, but the aristocracy of character, which was the true heraldry of men. [Applause.]  Now, the wise warned the young against light people, the same caution should be given about light literature.  The best books were effective only when digested and assimilated; others not only need no digestive, but they spoil and ruin the power of digestion and render those who indulge in this mental drain-drinking incapable of solid food or higher companionship.  Unhappily there was a terrible increase in light literature—it formed the staple supply of circulating libraries, and exercised the widest and most penetrating influence.  The works of pure reason and the real productions of genius have in the end a wider range of operation, but their effects are less immediate and less direct, for light literature is effective by reason of its very lightness; it penetrates where weightier matter would remain untasted.  Like artificial society there was an artificial literature, and this compelled me to enter a protest against these thrilling nonsensical stories which were neither art nor nature, but a diseased growth of lawless imaginings—having no claim to the title of imagination.  She regretted that even women contributed to this pernicious literature.  Bad books, like bad company, are always too near at hand, and the impressions they create are proportionally objectionable.  What a vast gulf extended between these worthless tales and the novels produced by writers like George Eliot, who add lustre to the name of woman.  Her latest production, Middlemarch, treats of some of the most difficult questions in life; Silas Marner contains deep and suggestive reflections, and long after such stories are forgotten, will the lessons which they convey produce a noble and beneficial effect.  It was lamentable that modern education despised natural history, despised religion, not theology—that was talk about God—but it despised the pointing or training to God's service.  She maintained that true education was the leading of human souls to what was best and making what was best out of them. [Applause]  And these two objects were always attainable by the same means.  True education had respect first, to the needs, and secondly, to the material that it was made of.  Lately there was a disposition to ignore and discountenance modern literature as light and ephemeral, but this was a fallacy, for in the America poet Lowell they discovered passages equal to those in the "Ode to Immortality," the greatest poem ever written by Wordsworth.  Poetry possessed the most refining and cultivating tendency, but should not be lightly skipped over.  Men should not read books for themselves, but for the things they contain.  Good literature was a burden people were anxious to avoid.  It should be studied, and often when we say of authors "what miracles of genius," we should rather say what miracles of labor, for they have ransacked a thousand minds and used the accumulated wisdom of ages.  Miss Faithfull concluded a very eloquent lecture by pointing out the evils consequent on the perusal of light literature and the inestimable advantages, morally and intellectually, to be derived from the study of the works of the standard authors.


 
The New York Times
(10th. May, 1873)

Farewell Reception to Miss Emily
Faithfull.


    The managers of the White Star line gave a farewell reception to Miss Emily Faithfull on board the steam-ship Oceanic this afternoon.  About 100 ladies and gentlemen responded to the invitation.

    Speeches were made by Rev. Dr. Bellows, Rev. O. F. Frothingham, Mr. Francis D. Moulton, and others.  In reply Miss Faithfull made a few remarks, expressing her pleasure in meeting so many warm-hearted friends in America, and stating that she would always cherish the remembrance of her seven months' visit to this country.

    A gentleman handed Miss Faithfull a gold watch made by the women employees of the National Elgin Watch Company, of Illinois and presented by them too her, in appreciation of her good work.  Miss Faithfull returned her sincere thanks, for the beautiful present, and said she was sorry that she could not thank the donors in person.

    The company then broke up, and previous to departure several ladies and gentlemen tendered their adieus to Miss Faithfull, wished her a prosperous voyage, and many expressed a hope of again seeing her at this side of the Atlantic.  Miss Faithfull will leave to day in the Oceanic, for Liverpool.


 
THE NEW YORK TIMES
(15th. August, 1874)

Woman's Work.


    Miss EMILY FAITHFULL is the leading champion in England of woman's rights.  But although out of regard to her position in that respect she was awarded many gratifying receptions by the friends of the "woman's movement" when she visited New-York, she really has very little in common with the ladies whose ambition it is to unwomanize their sex here.  Miss FAITHFULL has done much in her advocacy to earn for herself the unfavourable criticism of thoughtful men and women who are not prepared to accept more than a very small share of the theories she supports.  But from the moderation with which she has put forward her opinions, and from the amount of practical good which she has done in extending the field of labor for industrious women, she has earned the respect of many who do not agree with all that she has said.  In this way her observations upon matters pertaining to the advantage of her sex are worthy of consideration.  We published the other day a brief extract from a recently-written article by Miss FAITHFULL, in which she points out that woman as a body have not yet realized what real work is.  "If," she says, "women claim intellectual equality with man, they must be content to be judged by the same standard."  And she argues very rightly, that this cannot be until they accept also a higher conception of what work is.

    We take no exception to this view of the question so far as it goes; but it does not appear to us to go far enough.  It applies very forcibly to those women who, while pretending to want to earn a living, devote themselves to frivolous occupations.  But it does not touch the great body of hard-working women, who are barely able to obtain sustenance from the means that are within their reach.  These are the women who most need advice and assistance, and yet it is they who seem to receive the smallest share of consideration at the hands of feminine reformers.  The elevation of women—and of men, too, for that matter—is a very excellent aspiration; but let the work be begun where it is most urgently needed.  Miss FAITHFULL is content to direct her counsels at those women who "kill time by working ridiculous little pen- wipers, bead napkins-rings, and the like, which no one dreams of ever using."  But these are not the people who want her advice.  If women who have nothing else to do, and who are therefore, probably, not dependent on their own work for their living, choose so to employ themselves, no harm is done.  The most that can said is that they might be better employed.  But there are other women who do deserve consideration, not to say sympathy.

    Not many days ago there appeared in the daily papers the following advertisement:
 

BOWS AND SCARFS.—Experienced hands can have steady work at home.
        Apply   *   *   *


    Announcements of this kind attract a large class of people.  There are thousands of women who are but too anxious to obtain work, but who for many reasons cannot leave their homes.  These would flock to reply to such an advertisement, as in this particular case we know that they did.  But what was the remuneration offered for the making of the "bows and scarfs"?  Twenty-five cents per dozen!  Men know the price which they have to pay when they want to purchase such an article, but few are aware that the hard-working women who made them did so at the rate of about two cents apiece.  We find, too, that to make a dozen of these would be a very good day's work, a dozen and a half a hard day's work—more, in fact, than a woman with home duties of any kind to attend to could accomplish unless she devoted the greater part of the night also to her labour.  Such instances of ill-paid woman's work could be multiplied to almost any extent, but we mention this one only to indicate a direction in which there is much more need for reform in the case of women who while away their idle hours by making pen-wipers and napkin rings.  There are numbers of women who thoroughly comprehend what real work is, and who are in much more need of having the lot improved than those who can afford to waste their time in trifles.  We do not for a moment doubt the sincerity of women like Miss FAITHFULL, but it is too often evident, and this is one more example, that their efforts are misdirected.  If they would honestly and reasonably devote themselves to advancing the interests of the women who, in spite of hard work, are still struggling to live, they would meet with more support from society than they get by propagating abstract theories the elevation of their sex.


 
THE SCOTSMAN
7th October, 1878.

MISS EMILY FAITHFULL IN EDINBURGH.


On Saturday afternoon Miss Emily Faithfull delivered her lecture on "Modern Extravagance," in the Freemason's Hall, Edinburgh.  There was a large attendance.  Sir James Falshaw, who occupied the chair, pointed out, in introducing Miss Faithfull, that no time could be more opportune than the present for the delivery of such a lecture.  Miss Faithfull in the course of her lecture, described the different aspects in which the extravagance of the day manifested itself, showing that no class was free from this burden, from the mill girl who paid £3 for a feather to the peer who was put to shifts to maintain his position in advance of the mere moneyed man.  One of the causes of the prevalence of this extravagance, it was pointed out, was the credit system; and against the continuance of this practice a strong protest was made.  In conclusion, Miss Faithfull advocated a return by all to a less pretentious style of living, and exhorted every one to do what they could to bring back a healthier tone to society.  A vote of thanks was given to the lecturer on the motion of Bishop Cotterill.


 
THE NEW YORK TIMES
(28th. November, 1882)

WIDENING WOMAN'S USEFULNESS.

THE INVESTIGATIONS AND WORK OF MISS
EMILY FAITHFULL FOR HER SEX.


The lecture to be delivered Friday night, in Chickering Hall, by Miss Emily Faithfull, promises much of entertainment and of instruction.  In England, where Miss Faithfull has labored constantly for a period of five and twenty years to enlarge the sphere of remunerative employment for women, whatever she may have to say upon this interesting subject is listened to with marked attention.  Her experience and her practical views are a guarantee that no ordinary treatment will be given "The Changed Position of Women in the Nineteenth Century," the subject on which she proposes to lecture.  In prosecuting her work, Miss Faithfull has encountered no small obstacles from the English trades, by whom every effort has been made to prevent the introduction of women to the fields of labor so tyrannically controlled by the unions.  They have been overcome, however, women are now employed throughout England in a variety of mechanical pursuits, and the fact has been established that sex is no bar to the display of cleverness and skill.

    Miss Faithfull's attention was first drawn to this idea by the investigation which was made by a committee appointed by the National Association for the Promotion of Science to examine into the condition of the working women of England.  Among her associates on that committee were Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Houghton, the Bishop of London, and Miss Adelaide Proctor.  A mass of valuable information was acquired as to what women could do, what they should do, and what the opposition of the trades prevented them from doing.  The outgrowth of the investigation, so far as she was concerned, was the establishment of a printing-office in London in 1860.  Here several women were collected together and instructed in the art of typography.  The trades regarded this as an innovation that should not be tolerated, and devised numerous schemes for breaking up the office.  Bribery was resorted to and one of the men in the press-room destroyed a large amount of valuable machinery.  Wealthy friends came to the rescue, the loss was made good, and the unique enterprise grew into public favor and became prosperous.  Some years ago Mr. Houghton, of Cambridge, Mass., visited England and inspected this little office.  He was so impressed with what he saw that upon his return he introduced the employment of women into his own extensive printing establishment.  When Miss Faithfull came to America 10 years ago she found women employed in every branch of the business of this well-known publishing-house.  The education of women in music, in architecture, and in the higher arts generally has also been the purpose of Miss Faithfull. With what success, she will tell in her lecture.  She will describe the various directions in which women can find employment, and will detail a number of interesting facts in regard to the educational development of her sex.  In her work among Englishwomen Miss Faithfull has received the encouragement of the Queen and of many eminent members of Parliament.  Her lectures have become popular with all classes of society, and her writings are widely read.  Her novel entitled "Change upon Change" is praised for its clever pictures of the racial life of the higher classes.  The Victoria Magazine, a publication having a good circulation, was commenced by her for the purpose of giving a wider publicity to her views upon woman's capabilities and training.  She will devote herself while in this country to the study of American women and to lecturing in a number of the larger cities.  Her investigations will no doubt result in much good, and will lead to the better understanding of a subject which is yearly attracting more attention.


 
NEW YORK TIMES
(2nd. December, 1882)

WHY WOMAN SHOULD WORK.

MISS EMILY FAITHFULL'S VIEWS ON THE
DUTIES OF HER OWN SEX.


    Miss Emily Faithfull, of London, addressed an audience in Chickering Hall last evening on "The Changed Position of Women in the Nineteenth Century."  Col. Frederick A. Conkling introduced Miss Faithfull, who read her lecture from manuscript in a clear and distinct voice, and with easy self-possession.  Many of her expressions were warmly applauded.  She took the ground that women should work as well as men, and said that the idea that a woman unsexed herself by striving to earn her living was not only erroneous but ridiculous.  Women do not have the advantages and appliances that men have in the various branches of industry.  The inexorable laws of custom deter women from doing many things which ought to be perfectly legitimate for them to do.  In the face of the increasing preponderance of women in the world, Miss Faithfull said that it was cruel to put obstacles in the way of their learning some self-sustaining profession or trade.  There are 5 or 6 per cent. more women than men, and unless women were prepared to encourage or advocate polygamy they must acquire the means of supporting themselves.  The lecturer drew particular attention to the frequent instances where the widows and children of well-to-do men were suddenly left to shift for themselves without homes and without money.  Such painful occurrences emphasize the necessity of educating women early in life to earn their own bread.  Parents considered it their duty to prepare their sons for the battle of life; why should they not be equally considerate of their daughters?

    Miss Faithfull urged that it would be a good thing for humanity if each and every girl could be taught a trade or a profession early in life.  No girl had the right to assume that she would be clothed, fed, and cared for always.  She should be prepared to go through life as a bread-winner if need be.  There was a great difference between the past and the present acceptations of the term gentlewoman.  In olden time the term meant one who exercised an active supervision of the food and clothing of the entire estate.  The very name of "lady" signified bread-giver.  The gentlewoman of the present day, however, holds herself as being too fine for work.  The fact of her being a "lady" must needs exempt her from doing any kind of work.  "Idleness," said Miss Faithfull, "is always discreditable in a woman."  The lecturer had no objections to innocent social amusements, but she strongly condemned the growing tendency among society women to give themselves up entirely to the pursuit of frivolous pleasures.  Without the proper employment of their natural abilities and energies, young women are left to drift helplessly with the current of life, easy victims of every temptation that modern social life presents.  Idleness is distasteful even to indolent natures, and while the virtuous society girl would turn with a shudder from work she would accept a flirtation as a perfect godsend.  It had been repeatedly said that there never was any evil in the world but that a woman was at the bottom of it, but Miss Faithfull said the facts of history would show that no great good had ever been accomplished in the world that woman did not have a hand in it.  She did not believe in the notion that man was the superior creature and woman merely his shadow.  She maintained that each sex find its proper and equal sphere and that men and women were designed to be co-workers.  "A woman cannot he a worthy helpmeet to a man," said she, "if she is his slave."  The female mind was fully as capable of cultivation as the male mind, and the same tree of knowledge would afford mental food for both.  Miss Faithfull spoke of the gratifying results of the educational reform movement among the women in England.  She touched briefly upon the various branches of industry in which women are engaged and commended the work of the Ladies' Decorative Art Society of this City.  In London, she said that women were making their way successfully into the several professions and trades, and a large number of female clerks, telegraphs operators, copyists, &c., were employed in the English civil service.  She poke of her own successful experience with female type-setters, and said that Queen Victoria had especially commended typographical work done by women.  As for the bugbear that a woman's chances for matrimony were decreased by her taking her place among the working people of this world, Miss Faithfull said that if a man considered a wife who would not be a drag upon him, the fact of her being able to earn her own living would not detract from her value in his eyes.


 
THE SCOTSMAN
13th March, 1885.

THREE VISITS TO AMERICA.

By Emily Faithfull.  Edinburgh: David Douglas.


As true believers turn their faces in faith and expectation towards Mecca, so the devotees of woman's rights look towards the United States—the direction in which "the most delicate and difficult problem presented by modern civilisation," as Miss Emily Faithfull calls it in her book, is undergoing solution after the manner of their desires.  Miss Faithfull has made three pilgrims to the Land of Promise, and on this and other accounts is entitled from her sisterhood to all the honours belonging to a "Hadji of the green cord."  For other and perhaps less sympathetic readers, there will seem full justification for the publication of another volume on America, in that her book presents American facts and people, and especially American women, from a point of view different from that of the ordinary traveller; that it introduces us to fields of woman's work and duty where the male foot and even the male imagination have barely ventured to intrude; and lastly and chiefly because it is marked with great, good sense and wide and acute observation.  Miss Faithfull made acquaintance with most things that are estimable and with many things not at all estimable, in the society of the States; she has a great affection for the people and a great admiration of their ways; but she is by no means fanatical on the subject either of Transatlantic tastes and institutions or of the sphere of woman's labour, and she is ready to maintain her own country's cause and discuss the relative merits of Monarchy and Republicanism against so formidable an American patriot as Senator Sumner, who, while admitting the political corruption that exists in the States, amazed her by adding that "when the people of England had advanced enough, a Republic they will have."  Walt Whitman is another American notability whose acquaintance she makes, and who expresses his mind freely on the questions of the day.  The sage assured her that "the pulsebeats of the nation never are to be found in the sure-to-be-put-forward-on-such-occasions citizen;" that what passes in the States as society is to him "dangerously noisome and vapoury," especially in Boston, "with its bloodless Unitarianism and its circle of mummies, its complacent vanity of scientism and literature;" and that the true gold ore must be sought in "America's general humanity."  "The remarkable women" to whom we are introduced are legion; and it is with trepidation and blushing that one of the less remarkable sex finds herself treading the halls of Vassar College, or superintending the working of a fire-engine by the bright girl graduates of Wellesley College, or suddenly brought into the presence of the crowd of "eager vivacious Western girls at the most restless assertive age, every one of them with some unlived romance in her heart" that make academic training itself a romance at Mill's Seminary, California.  At each of these institutions excellent work is being done, though, as Miss Faithfull remarks, "it is not easy to understand how all those throbbing heart-strings are kept wound up and in order."  Less admirable, if more startling, are the phases of the sex's physical and intellectual activity presented by the "woman-switchman" and the "woman steamboat captain" of the Mississippi; and the regulation of female heartstrings becomes a greater mystery than ever when we see how it is managed among the Mormons.  "Continually" says Miss Faithfull, "Mrs Hannah T. King, an English lady, said to me "the laws of this (the Mormon) Church coincide with the laws of my nature; I have three beautiful daughters living in polygmy;" and this and other Mormon ladies assured her of their thorough contentedness with their condition and their disgust at the "carnal Gentile mind" that "cannot comprehend either the will of God or the peace and happiness of the patriarchal order of marriage."  Yet Miss Faithfull holds, and doubtless rightly, that polygamy, as practised in Utah, is a crime against nature involving such terrible degradation "that those who have the interests of women at heart can never rest satisfied until they are freed from the worst form of slavery the heart of man ever yet invented."  It would be cruel, perhaps, to draw the inference that women are not invariably the best judges of what is for the good of themselves and their sex.

 


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